My owners manual in my 2000 warned against idling for over 5 minutes. Never had a problem though.

 

where is dr. diesel? he has a phd in idiling.

 

I have a habit of letting mine idle for extended periods of time. On my previous 2nd gen and the early '04 both has had a decent amount of idle time. When traveling I will pull off at rest area's and take a 1 - 6 hour snooze and unless it's spring or fall the ol' Cummins will be running so I can have heat or AC. The 2nd gen I had to use the "stick" method, and the 3rd will bump up to 1000rpm when it gets cold enough. 1000 rpm on the 3rd gen will usually keep it up in the operating temperature range if you keep the climate control dial in the middle. I noticed if you turn the heat up all the way, even with idling at 1k rpms she will cool back down in close to 0 degree temps.

I'd hate to see the hour meter in the previous 2nd gen, and I guess my Dodge tech checked it on my 3rd becuase he said I idled way too much. However I noticed no adverse effects from extended idling, this was with 370k on the '00 and near 80k on the '04. I may break down and my an Espar or equivalent, anyone know what the going price of them are?

 

I turn on the exhaust brake when I'm idling for more than a few minutes. It brings up the temp nicely.

 

well i gotta put in my .02.
as a former over the road driver this is how the 3 companies i drove for aproached idle time. they would not fine us for excessive idle time but would give a bonus for low idle time and the reason was not mech related but fuel related! i chose to idle and to hell with their $50 bonus. in my million miles over the road i never once heard anyone say that idling was other than wasting fuel. yes i said "1 million miles" in my best dr. evil voice. i have driven more miles than most will drive in there entire life. i warm my truck every morning and it manages to get up to operating temp sitting there all by it's self.

 

So if I'm in a state that has a 3 minute idle law and I set my turbo-timer for 4 minutes to "properly" cool down the engine.....will I get fined?

 

I guess it all depends on the cop. If he sits there and times your truck idling, then I guess technically, he can write you up. But come on, how many cops do you of that actually do that? They should actually look for REAL criminals.

 

In most states it's the environmental cops who look for people over idling.
I'm sure they can give as many tickets as humanly possible by just hanging out at interstate highway rest stops and have no need to cruise around town with a stopwatch.

 

Only if you get caught.

 

If somebody is checking the time on your auto shut down you are in trouble already because technically speaking it is against the law to leave an operating motor vehicle unattended.